The accused have been identified as 39-year-old Arshad Dhuna, 28-year-old Salman Dhunna and 42-year-old Hemal Shah, 39-year-old Mumbai resident Kunal Goyal and 35-year-old Mohit Sharma and 33-year-old Raj Teotia. Haryana’s Karnal K.
The GMAT exam is the most widely used test for MBA admission, and reportedly, around 2,00,000 candidates worldwide take it every year. According to the official, the members of the syndicate were successful in getting their clients 780 marks out of the maximum 800 marks in the said examination.
Deputy Commissioner of Police KPS Malhotra said that the IFSC had received information that some syndicates are involved in unauthorized admissions in various competitive examinations and are charging hefty sums of money to the candidates to obtain desired marks in the prestigious online examinations. There was an inclination that these syndicates are advertising or claiming online examinations of GMAT, JEE, Cisco Associate, Professional, Specialty, IBM, CompTIA exams EC Council’s CEH, CHFI and CCISO etc.
The information was developed and the accused hackers were contacted through a fraud and a deal with members of the syndicate to crack the GMAT exam, the police said, as a part of the deal, The exam was booked in the name of a fake cop. Officer.
On December 26, the day of the exam, the accused asked the fake candidate to download the “Ultraviewer” software and thereby gain remote access to his laptop. He also connected the candidate’s laptop to the solver, who had attempted the entire exam and escaped detection with proctors and other security measures.
The hacker gained access to the laptop and disguised the remote access file as a system file. Police said the fake candidate scored a total of 780 out of 800, which is 97 per cent and can get admission in top MBA colleges across the world.
Technical analysis of telecommunications and financial data led to the identification of syndicate members, who were found to be based in Mumbai. Subsequently, the police conducted raids in Mumbai and on 1 January three persons namely two Dhunes and Shah were apprehended from Mahim. These three were mainly involved in dealing with the fake customer and then connecting the fake customer to another module of the syndicate, which gains access and solves the test.
Continuous interrogation of the three accused arrested in Mumbai led to the identification of Goel, a Delhi-based syndicate member who was running an institute for a networking training course and arranging solvers for the Mumbai-based module. Goel’s interrogation led to the identification of Mohit Sharma, a resident of Gurgaon, who was a solver in the case.
Subsequently, his interrogation led to the fact that he entered the profession because of Teotia, who is one of the most notorious exam hackers and is wanted by the CBI and Haryana Police in various cases. There was also a reward of one lakh rupees on Tewatia for his arrest.
Tewatia was finally captured from Jaipur on 3 January. During interrogation he revealed that he is engaged in hacking and solving online exams for the last 5 years and he was also in contact with Russian hackers to hack the exam.
Delhi Police has advised the GMAT’s governing agency, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), to modify their system or detect mirroring of candidates’ screens on any other device through which the exam is being attempted.
“Further investigation in the matter is still on,” the official said.
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